On August 19, Yin Li, Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, met with Helge Lund, Chair of the Board of the Danish company Novo Nordisk.

Yin noted that, with rising living standard and aging population, chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes have emerged as global health challenges. Rare diseases are also gaining increasing attention. As a super-large city, Beijing faces significant healthcare demands in chronic disease management and rare disease treatment. At present, the city is endeavoring to build itself into an international innovation hub at a faster pace, improve policy support and services, forge a patient-oriented service system and foster a world-leading industrial cluster covering pharmaceutical and healthcare. Novo Nordisk is a globally renowned biopharmaceutical company, and there is vast potential for cooperation. Yin expressed the hope that Novo Nordisk shores up its R&D center in Beijing, fully leverage the city’s abundant resources in education, technology and talent, and deepen collaboration with local hospitals, universities, research institutes, and pharmaceutical enterprises to drive breakthroughs in cutting-edge fields such as biotechnology, cell and gene therapy, and targeted drugs. Stronger partnerships with Beijing’s technology companies are also encouraged to foster more applications in areas including AI-assisted drug development and digital health management. He warmly invited Novo Nordisk to accelerate the commercialization of innovations in Beijing, expand industrial investment, and enhance localization through production and manufacturing operations. The company can align with the city’s pharmaceutical and health investment funds to support promising local projects, thereby jointly creating new growth drivers. Furthermore, it is important to promote exchanges and cooperation in chronic disease prevention and control and health management. Joint efforts should be made to improve the medical and health service system, strengthen education, training and talent exchange, and enhance healthcare delivery and corporate management. Together, Beijing and Novo Nordisk can better serve global markets and meet the growing health needs of the people.

Lund spoke highly of Beijing’s achievements in expanding opening-up and improving the business environment, expressing the company’s willingness to expand its presence in the Chinese market. The company plans to further increase its investment in Beijing and explore cooperation opportunities in areas such as clinical trials, R&D and production, and chronic disease prevention and control, aiming to make innovative drugs more accessible to patients and contribute further to the high-quality development of Beijing’s biopharmaceutical industry.

Municipal leaders Jin Wei and Zhao Lei attended the meeting.